Wedding Day Blues; Rift Casts Shadow over Tories' Big Bash

Byline: RICHARD KAY

NO DOUBT, it will be the social event of the Tory calendar. But the wedding of the party's rising star Ed Vaizey and corporate lawyer Alex Holland is fast becoming the backdrop to a complicated domestic intrigue.

Naturally, Vaizey, 37, MP for Wantage and leading light in the fashionable 'Notting Hill set' of influential young Conservatives, and his bride want all their friends to be at the ceremony - being held in the House of Commons chapel in three weeks time.

Among their most valued political - and personal - friends are David Cameron, candidate for the Tory leadership and Vaizey's neighbouring MP in Witney, Oxfordshire, and his attractive wife Samantha.

But to the surprise of many guests the bridge-loving Cameron, 38, will not be toasting the happy couple at the reception at the Institute of Contemporary Arts building on The Mall.

Cameron's aide George Eustace says: 'We've put Ed's wedding into the diary, but I'm not sure if David's going. There was a suggestion he would go to the ceremony and leave before the reception.' Alas, I am told, Cameron cannot make it. It does seem odd with so many potential supporters in a leadership contest at hand that the smooth Old Etonian will be absent. …

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